The Treasury asked the electorate to vote for the 100,000 separate money-saving schemes submitted – a mixture of the sensible, the mildly eccentric, the Nimbyish, and the frothingly rightwing, as it published the list in full.

Osborne invited the public participation as part of his attempt to show that "we are all in this together" and some of the ideas – including centrally purchasing mobile phones for civil servants – will be seriously looked at by the chancellor in the build-up to October's comprehensive review.

Others, which have survived the Treasury's moderation process to appear on the Spending Challenge website, are unlikely to see the light of day.

These include the notion that prisoners should not be allowed to spend their time slouching around the exercise yard having a crafty snout, but should be helping to make Britain green instead.

"With more and more prisoners being locked up it is time that they contributed something to society. Prison exercise bikes, rowing machines and treadmills should be used to drive electricity generators which could be used to power the prison itself or potentially contribute to the National Grid."

Another voter suggested that Iain Duncan Smith could do with a touch of the Clint Eastwoods in his attempts to tackle welfare fraud. "Extend the legislation governing the licensing of private investigators to allow them to act as 'bounty hunters' tracking and reporting benefit cheats," was one suggestion.

A frequent visitor to Hyde Park and the banks of the River Thames had noticed that there were quite a few royal swans available for slaughter. "The Meat of Swan is tasty to those with the refined Tastes. Therefore I am proposing the sale of Swan to Highest Bidder."

Other ideas include banning the Metropolitan police from buying expensive BMWs, the scrapping of deputy head teachers, a plea to save £1.3bn on the High Speed 2 rail link (from someone living 450 metres from the proposed route) and a plan – perhaps ironic – to abolish all security at Britain's airports: "Searching passengers and luggage requires a lot of expensive staff and equipment. If this was scrapped, it would bring huge savings, and technology companies could focus their efforts on more useful equipment, such as medical equipment."

While recognising that this could encourage terrorists to blow up aircraft, the voter notes: "In the UK, around 2,500 people are killed on the roads each year, and we don't make a fuss about that."

One idea unlikely to find favour with the chancellor for either fiscal or political reasons was a plan to cut excise duty on alcohol.

"Make booze cheaper because then the entire country will be drunk most of the time and no one will notice or care how terrible the government is doing," was one voter's suggestion.